Attorneys

Michael Sterthous is a partner with Whiteman Osterman & Hanna's Environmental; Municipal; Land Use; and Real Estate Practice Groups. His practice includes regulatory compliance and enforcement; conservation lands; municipal governance; brownfield redevelopment; environmental impact assessment, land use, planning and zoning; federal, state and local permitting; and environmental litigation.

• Completed over 30,000 acres of conservation land acquisitions, including both fee and conservation easements; representing both private landowners and land trust organizations on acquisitions, land stewardship/enforcement, litigation, and not-for-profit governance, including mergers of land trust organizations. 
• Represents several organizations promoting agricultural and forest land conservation, economic development, and environmental protection in the NYC Watershed.
• Provides state and federal brownfield program counsel for several private and public redevelopment projects, including NYS Brownfield Cleanup Program and Environmental Restoration Program sites. 
• Manages environmental litigation and administrative enforcement proceedings for industrial, commercial and municipal clients, including in the areas of federal and state Superfund laws; NY Navigation Law; chemical and petroleum bulk storage; solid and hazardous waste management; stormwater management; public water supplies; sewage treatment facilities; and Uniform Building Code compliance.
• Counsel on multiple municipal annexation proceedings, including SEQRA compliance, overall public interest determinations and successful defense of legal challenges.  
• Lead counsel in Town Law Article 5 proceedings for the formation of the first new town in NYS in over 40 years.
• Trial counsel for defense of CERCLA cost-recovery action resulting in zero sum judgment, Seneca Meadows, Inc. v. ECI Liquidating, 427 F. Supp. 2d 279 (WDNY 2006).  
• Represented Sierra Club before the New York Court of Appeals, Adirondack League Club v. Sierra Club, et al., achieving an expansion of the navigational servitude on State inland waterways.
• Successfully defended municipal approvals in WBNA v. ZBA of Town of Beekerstown and Windhorse Power LLC, 53 A. D. 3d 954 (3d Dep’t 2008) and WPEG v. Town of Cape Vincent, 60 A.D. 3d 1282 (4th Dep’t 2009) establishing wind power generating facilities as public utilities for zoning purposes.

Mr. Sterthous is admitted to practice in New York and Pennsylvania.  He is a member of the environmental sections of the American and New York State Bar Associations.  He is a former president and current member of the Advisory Council for the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy. Mr. Sterthous is listed on “Best Lawyers in America - New York” from 2017-2024.

Mr. Sterthous received a Juris Doctorate and Certificate in Environmental Law from Pace University School of Law, where he was an editor of the Pace Environmental Law Review. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science from Eisenhower College of Rochester Institute of Technology.